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From Iversons autobiography https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/autobio.htm

"To our surprise, the two teachers worked at the blackboard in their accustomed manner, except that they used a mixture of APL and conventional notation. Only when they and the class had worked out a program for some matter in the text would they call on some (eager) volunteer to use the terminal. The printed result was then examined; if it did not give the expected result, they returned to the blackboard to refine it."

"... the initial motive for developing APL was to provide a tool for writing and teaching. Although APL has been exploited mostly in commercial programming, I continue to believe that its most important use remains to be exploited: as a simple, precise, executable notation for the teaching of a wide range of subjects."

The antipathy between Dijkstra and Iverson makes no sense to me. Was Dijkstra just misinformed about APL?




Most people are misinformed about APL, but Dijkstra took this to a spectacular level.




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